


Cat's out of the Bag

by YouDontKnowMeIDontKnowYou



Series: Sanders Sides Stand Alone One Shots [4]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series), Thomas Sanders
Genre: Cat!Virgil, Cat!Virgil Sanders, Cuddling & Snuggling, Cute, Fluff, M/M, Sleepy Cuddles, Virgil Turns Into a Cat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-16 08:04:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16081949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YouDontKnowMeIDontKnowYou/pseuds/YouDontKnowMeIDontKnowYou
Summary: After wandering into the Imagination to find Roman, Virgil turns into a cat!





	Cat's out of the Bag

When Virgil had gone into the Imagination to fetch Roman for dinner, Patton hadn’t imagined that Roman would have returned alone with a cat in tow. And by ‘in tow’ he meant clutched precariously in his arms, scratching and seething.

“Roman,” inquired Logan over the creative Side’s chorus of Patton-friendly curses and screeches. “Why do you have a cat?”

“And where’s Virgil?”

“Funny story-Ah! Verge, stop that! You’ve made your _point_ quite clear!”

The black shorthair he was holding sprung away from his grasp. Pausing for a moment after it landed, it took the time to hiss at Roman before sprinting off to hide under the couch.

Logan raised an eyebrow. “Did you say… Virgil?”

Patton squealed. “My dark, strange son is a cute, adorable cat? _This is the best day ever!_ ”

“I didn’t realize Thomas’s voice could reach that pitch,” commented Logan, as he rubbed at his ear.

Roman pouted at the sight of his shredded sleeves. “I was exploring Thomas’s innermost desires. I was looking upon his lifelong dream of getting over his allergies and getting a cat when Virgil came in and well…”

From his hiding spot, Virgil hissed. Patton knelt down, head pressed to the carpet.

“Come on kiddo, come on out! I know you’re probably embarrassed but we need to make sure you’re okay.”

“If he’s okay? What about me? Look at what he’s done to me!”

“And look what you’ve done to him.”

“You can shut it, pocket calculator!”

Slowly, with as much dignity as he could muster, Virgil crawled out from under the couch. He sat, glaring at Roman and Logan, daring them to say something. His nose twitched as he caught sight of Patton slowly reaching over, holding up the back of his hand towards the other Side. Virgil’s brain sizzled for a second as the cat instincts took over.

He caught his scent; Patton smelled like Christmas, sugar cookies, and safety and he leaned over to nuzzle his hand. The fatherly Side flexed his palm in response and Virgil kneaded his head against it.

“My small bean,” whispered Patton as Virgil rubbed up against him.

“Interesting,” said Logan, adjusting his glasses.

This broke Virgil from his spell. He meowed, shrinking in on himself, hair raising on his back.

“There’s no reason to feel self-conscious.” Logan glared at Roman, who was making a poor attempt at not snickering. “You have taken the form of a cat. It only makes sense that you would behave like one.”

“Oh shhh it’s okay baby,” Patton cooed as he scooped up the cat into his lap. He was surprisingly obliging, tucking his paws underneath him and leaning up against his stomach.

Roman made a face. “ _Baby_?”

“He’s my little fur baby!”

“As pleasing as this form may be to you, Patton, we will have to figure out a way to get Virgil to return to his original form.”

“That uh,” Roman squirmed awkwardly. “May actually take a while.”

Virgil tensed and glared at the prince. A low growl formed in the back of his throat. Patton began petting him more furiously.

“Well, remember when Thomas was a teenager and he wanted to get his ears pierced? And I came back one day and I had pierced ears?”

Logan nodded. “Ah yes, that lasted for two weeks, until Thomas became too self-conscious and decided not to.”

“That desire is still there, naturally, but my earrings disappeared as soon as his fancy for it passed.”

The logical Side hummed. “So what you are saying is, that we just have to wait for Virgil to turn back on his own. It’s an innermost desire, not a part of his personality, so of course we cannot just talk Thomas out of wanting a feline.”

“So what I’m hearing,” said Patton, scratching behind Virgil’s ears. “Is that we can keep him!”

Logan paused, cocking his head. “Well…yes. That much is very certain.”

He squealed again, cradling the cat gently to his chest. Virgil gave a loud meow, but didn’t struggle. As Patton was hugging him, he stared Roman in the eye and flexed his claws.

The fanciful Side sighed. “This is going to be a long week.”

~~~

Logan sat on the couch, occasionally sipping tea and typing away at the computer in his lap. All was quiet. Until he heard a small sound, just ahead of him. He looked up and met caramel eyes with silted irises. Virgil the cat stared at him, one paw extended towards his teacup.

“Virgil…”

The paw inched forward.

“Don’t do it Virgil…”

The cup began to slide.

“Don’t you dare…”

The cup titled and fell off the coffee table, chamomile tea spilling everywhere.

“ _Virgil_!”

Logan sighed as the other Side bolted. He got up and cleaned the mess up, a little miffed that the tea cup had been chipped, but fortunately not shattered. He sat back down, placing his computer back in his lap, and was surprised to feel a presence next to him. Logan turned left to see the little black cat next to him.

“Meow.”

His brows furrowed. “What do you want? You already knocked over my drink!”

A small paw rested on his thigh, then another paw on his key board, and then Virgil was curling up on his laptop. As he settled, Virgil turned his eyes upward and let out a testy mewing sound.

Logan sighed, slowly sliding out the laptop from under Virgil. He hissed at this, but quickly settled to lie down to take a nap.

“You know, you didn’t have to spill my tea if you wanted some attention.”

“Merow.”

~~~

“Ow!”

Roman jumped three feet in the air, spinning around. There on the couch, right next to where he had been just about to sit, was Patton’s rumpled up cat sweater.

He frowned, reaching down towards the sweater. “What in the blazes-yow!”

A small black paw had darted out to scratch him, accompanied by a hiss.

Logan looked up from the book he was reading. “Oh, Roman, I forgot to tell you. Don’t disturb Virgil on the couch. He’s been feeling a little down lately, I suspect because of his time spent in his current form. I can’t find Patton, and he won’t let me pet him.”

Roman’s irritated scowl turned into a frown as he peered down at the cat, curled up entirely under the sweater.

“Virgil,” he whispered, “Hey, little storm cloud?”

There was no response and he sighed. He felt guilty for his part in all this. He needed some way to cheer the other Side up. He wasn’t called Creativity for nothing, and an idea soon occurred to him.

A flash of red appeared in front of sweater-cave he had made for himself, pulling Virgil’s attention away from his sulking. Instinctively, his paw reached out towards it. It disappeared for a moment, but in the next it was there again. He swatted at it again and missed.

“Mer,” he growled in frustration.

The third time, it fell straight to the couch and stayed there. He waited a few seconds before grabbing at it. He clawed at it for a moment before it was yanked out of his paws. He yowled and chased after it.

Roman giggled, watching Virgil jumping around and pouncing at his sash. He’d never seen the Side do anything remotely exercising before and it was amusing to watch the normally serious Virgil to devolve into playfulness.

From afar, Logan was not so subtly filming the exchange. Patton would love to see this.

~~~

Something was . . . different with Patton ever since he returned last night. Virgil couldn’t put his paw on it, but he knew he didn’t like it. It was something in the way Patton picked him up and started stroking him. There wasn’t enough smushing.

Though suspicious, he had little way of relating this fact to the others. There was nothing to do but wait until this form wore off. So, he had taken refuge under the couch. He was currently glaring back at Roman, who was on his stomach trying to coax him out.

“Come on Vergie, what’s wrong now?”

“Meow!”

_Because the both of you are blind idiots!_

“Leave him alone, Roman,” said Logan. “He’ll come out when he’s ready.”

“You mean when he’s feline better?” piped up Patton. “Don’t worry so much, kiddo!”

Roman sighed. “I guess. While we’re all here, I was wondering what you all would think if I started on a new musical.”

Logan paused to think about it. He nodded. “That would be acceptable. It would be stressful,” Virgil gave an affirmative mew. “But it would be good for Thomas’s career.”

The prince peered back down at the cat. “Would it be too stressful for you?”

He did a motion Roman interpreted as a shrug.

“I’ll take that as a ‘not too much’.”

“Well kiddo,” Roman glanced up, assuming Patton would already be on board. “I’m not so sure Thomas can right now. He’s so busy.”

Roman furrowed his brows. “We’ve been having a lot of free time lately, though.”

“And that time should be spent with friends! I’m just thinking about poor Virgil here, the stress probably won’t help him recover.”

Roman deflated a bit. “Oh, okay…”

Suddenly, Virgil darted out from his hiding spot. He fluffed out his fur and started hissing and spitting. The others jumped back.

“Virgil?” asked Logan. “What’s wrong?”

Patton narrowed his eyes at the cat. “Shh! Quiet!”

Roman and Logan both leaned back at hearing the harsh tone.

“Deceit!” Roman declared. “Where’s the real Patton?”

The power of puns must have gifted him also with the power of perfect timings, Logan would later muse, because Patton appeared walking through the front door, gazing down at a paper in his hands.

“I don’t know, Deceit,” he said. “The map for the scavenger hunt didn’t really lead me anywhere.” He looked up as he entered. “Don’t get me wrong though, sport, it was really fun!”

Virgil sprang towards Patton, weaving through his legs. Smelling him, and satisfied that this was the real Patton, he bounded onto Deceit, claws out and biting.

Deceit scrambled up, returning to his real form and sinking out, muttering curses as he went.

“Nice work, Virgil.” Logan complemented with a smile.

Roman beamed down at him. “That could have been a cat-astrophe!”

Patton frowned a little, kneeling down to face the still puffed up fur ball. “Kiddo, that wasn’t very nice of you. Now, I don’t know why he looked like me, but you shouldn’t have-”

Virgil ignored his scolding, instead siding up to the fatherly figuring and rubbing against him, purring his heart out. Patton stopped chastising him, melting at the sight. He scooped the cat up, rubbing at his ears.

“Aw, it’s okay. Everyone messes up sometimes, I still think you’re absolutely purr-fect!”

~~~

A few days later, Virgil was making his rounds around the house. Sometimes it was hard to fight his new instincts, and those instincts often dictated that he search the house for intruders. Especially since the incident with Deceit.  

At the end of his journey, he came across Roman asleep on the couch. He was curled up on his side, head facing away from the back of the couch. Another late night working was probably to blame. He looked very, very comfortable Virgil noted.

In his real body, Virgil would never dare to consider it. But as he was now a cat, it was . . . acceptable to Virgil. He leapt up onto the couch, curling up against Roman’s stomach. He purred at the warmth and fell happily asleep.

 

Hours later, Roman woke up to a strange, yet strangely comfortable presence next to him. He cracked open his eyes to see a mess of purple hair next to him and a face with dark circles under their eyes. It was Virgil, human again. Or as human as a Side could be.

He blinked, realizing he had his arms wrapped around the anxious Side and that they were, in fact, cuddling. Not that Virgil seemed to mind. He had a small grin on his face and was rumbling.

_Rumbling?_

“Are you _purring_?”

Virgil startled awake. “Wha-”

He squirmed in confusion, noticing how heavy and weird his body felt. He turned his head and saw Roman, their faces oddly close.

“Princey?”

Said prince grinned at the sleepy Side. “You’re still purring, you know?”

“Of course I am,” he said without thinking. “I’m still a-wait.” He held up his hands and examined them. “Huh. Neat-o.”

Roman pulled him into a hug. Virgil’s face went as red as Roman’s sash.

“H-hey!”

“I’m just so glad you’re back!”

“I never left!” He tried to wiggle out of Roman’s grip, but he wouldn’t relent. “Let me go!”

Roman whined, “Noooooo! You never want to cuddle me! You’re actually very snuggly.”

“I’m not snuggly!” Virgil said, still beat red. “I am darkness personified!”

“Uh huh,” the prince smiled, as Virgil slowly stopped thrashing. “You sure are.”

He could have sworn he heard an honest to god hiss from him, but he knew that wasn’t unusual for him. After a few minutes, they finally relaxed back into an easy doze.

 

“Patton. You’re going to run out of storage on your phone.”

“I don’t care,” said Patton, snapping another picture of Virgil and Roman cuddling. Virgil’s head was tucked under Roman’s chin, and the fanciful Side was holding him like he was a teddy bear. “This is better than when he was a cat!”

Logan rolled his eyes. “Just send me the best ones, okay?”

One never knew when one needed blackmail material.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope this made you smile! I don't think there's enough Cat!Virgil out there in the world, and I think that's a shame. If you liked this, check out my other one shots in the series, they're all stand alone so they don't have to be read in any order to be understood.


End file.
